


Roommate Agreement

by reindeerjumper



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Drunken Kissing, F/M, First Kiss, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Slow Burn, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reindeerjumper/pseuds/reindeerjumper
Summary: “Why are you naked in my bed?”Robin was leaned against the doorframe of her tiny bedroom, wrapped up in a robe and clearly midway through brushing her teeth. Cormoran, on the other hand, was bollocks naked, laying face down on her mattress. His prosthesis was a forgotten memory, and he drunkenly thanked his lucky stars that the towel he had wrapped himself in after his shower was draped haphazardly over his arse cheeks.





	Roommate Agreement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [potentiality_26](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/gifts).



> for the tumblr prompt, "why are you naked in my bed?"

“Why are you naked in my bed?”

Robin was leaned against the doorframe of her tiny bedroom, wrapped up in a robe and clearly midway through brushing her teeth. Cormoran, on the other hand, was bollocks naked, laying face down on her mattress. His prosthesis was a forgotten memory, and he drunkenly thanked his lucky stars that the towel he had wrapped himself in after his shower was draped haphazardly over his arse cheeks.

“‘S not your bed, ‘s mine,” he mumbled, face buried somewhere in her pillow.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is most definitely my bed.” Robin crossed the threshold to where Cormoran lay, spitting the used toothpaste from her mouth into a paper cup she had been carrying. Grimacing, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth before continuing. “Cormoran,” she said gently as she sat on the edge of the mattress. “We said we wouldn’t do this.”

Cormoran now rolled his head to the side, peeking at her with one eye still burrowed in the pillowcase. He let out a groan and then rolled his head back down so that he didn’t have to look at her. Suddenly, he felt the warmth of her hand on his shoulder, which jolted straight down to his crotch.

“Where have you been, that you’re so pissed?” Robin said gently.

“Shanker ‘n I went down to the Tottenham. Had a pint or two.”

“This is  _not_  a pint or two, Cormoran. I’ve seen you down four or five pints and still be able to walk a straight line.”

Cormoran raised his head and blearily looked at her. He knew he must look a sight, hair all mussed and still damp from the shower, creases on his cheek from the pillowcase. Robin looked back down at him, the picture of everything beautiful and good in his life, and he felt like a complete tit.

“Maybe not my regular stuff, eh?” he said, making to sit up. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Robin’s hand gently keeping the towel in place so that neither of them were left in a more awkward position than they already were in. He blinked a few times before scrubbing one of his broad hands down his face. “Shank might’ve convinced me to do some shots of tequila with him.”

_What a stupid fucking idea that was._

Robin laughed at his admission, grabbing his hand with her own. “No wonder you look like shit,” she giggled.

“Hey now,” he said, “I always look like shit.” He gave her a self deprecating grin, but her face didn’t return the sentiment. Instead, she looked kind of sad, maybe even a little guilty. “What’s wrong?” he murmured, seeing the look on her face.

“You don’t always look like shit, Cormoran. In fact, I think quite the opposite.”

Her words hung in the air, Strike not daring to believe them for what they were. Her eyes were trained on his, two blue gray storms that could see straight into his soul. Softly, he said, “Robin, I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to do this.”

It was obvious that they were both thinking back on the past week’s big event that had left them both reeling and gasping for air, as if someone had taken their lives and tossed them around like a scene in a snow globe.

One week ago, they had stumbled back into the flat after too many glasses of wine and too many pints of beer.

Robin had only been living there for two weeks, picking up the pieces of her life after she left Matthew literally standing at the altar and deciding to move into the shoebox-sized office at the back of Cormoran’s flat. All that she had brought with her was a twin-sized bed, a chest of drawers, and a tiny, whitewashed escritoire. Her parents had given her all of the furniture, things they no longer needed or wanted from her childhood home in Masham, and she had trudged into the flat with two large duffel bags full of her worldly possessions. She had given him a sheepish grin, thanking him profusely for letting her stay.

“It’s the least I can do,” Cormoran had said, leading her to the back office. 

Within the two weeks, she had made the room look more homey than the rest of the flat had ever looked. A well-worn quilt in sunshine yellows and soft pinks covered the small bed that she had pushed into the corner by the window, and several pillows lined the head of the mattress. One day, she had gone down to Portobello Market and returned several hours later with an antique rug and a brass filigree mirror in tow. The mirror now hung above the chest of drawers she had brought with him, and on top of it sat a delicate looking tray that held all of her cosmetics and perfumes. On the escritoire, Robin had placed a bunch of flowers that she bought from the New Covent Garden Market in an empty jam jar she had stolen from the kitchen, and next to it sat a candle that smelled exactly like cinnamon rolls in the oven.

It was easily Cormoran’s favorite place in the entire flat.

On the night in question, they had walked into the flat giggling, Cormoran’s arm protectively around her waist as he guided her in. They had been flirting all night, and neither of them seemed to care about the repercussions. Robin had stumbled into the kitchen, claiming to look for the makings of sandwiches for them both, and Cormoran had sat at the small dinette with his legs splayed open and his head in his hand, watching her bustle about his tiny kitchen as if she’d been there his whole life. He couldn’t stop staring at the curve of her arse in the skirt she was wearing, or the way her sheet of rose gold hair tumbled around her shoulders and fell across her eyes as she swished it about. She had kicked off her shoes at the door and was now padding barefoot around the kitchen with the sleeves of her jumper rolled up. 

When she had walked over to the table where he sat with two turkey sandwiches on plates, Cormoran had gently grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his lap. She had gone willingly, placing the plates down in front of them as she went.

“What are you doing?” she had murmured, looking at him through her hair with a smile on her lips.

“I’d really, really like to kiss you right now,” he had said, allowing his face to be as open and honest as he’d ever let it be. She had looked at him with just as much openness, the flat of her palm cradling his cheek as her thumb swept back and forth along his cheekbone.

“Then do it.”

 Cormoran had leaned in, claiming her mouth with his own. The kiss had been chaste, soft and sweet as if he had kissed her a million times before that. It had also spent sparks flying down all of his nerve endings, causing something warm and visceral to pool in his gut and bloom in his chest. When she pulled away, it was like Cormoran was seeing the world in a whole new light, one that was rosier and softer, that held all of the goodness in its edges and pooled in all the darkest places.

Suddenly, though, it all fell away as Robin murmured, “Cormoran, we can’t…we can’t do this. We’re coworkers. We’re  _roommates_.”

Cormoran had hastily agreed with her, and they had parted ways to their separate rooms almost immediately after that, their turkey sandwiches forgotten. The following week had been torture, dancing around each other as if the kiss had never happened. They had done surveillance together, making awkward conversation and stuffing hands in pockets to keep from reaching for each other. Most nights, Robin ate Cup-a-Noodles in the flat while Cormoran made some half-cocked excuse to pick up a kabob from a vendor on the way home.

He hated every second of it while simultaneously longing to do it all again if it meant another kiss.

All of those long, arduous weekdays led to the Friday they were now hanging on the edges of. Shanker had invited Cormoran out on the pretense of just catching up, but once he saw the look in his oldest friend’s eye, he started pouring tequila down his throat until Cormoran admitted to what was going on.

Which was how Cormoran now lay naked on Robin’s bed, damp from the shower with a half-hard cock hidden underneath a towel as she told him, in so many words, that she found him handsome.

“Cormoran,” she said softly, taking his hand again and giving it a squeeze. “I’ve…I’ve been thinking a lot this week, about what happened.” He leveled his gaze at her, silently willing her to go on with the raise of his eyebrows. She cleared her throat before saying, “Maybe I was wrong. Vulnerable. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I just…I just think maybe we  _should_  see where it goes.”

That familiar warm feeling in the pit of his stomach started to churn again, and he had to double check with himself that it wasn’t just the tequila making an encore appearance.

“So you’re telling me,” he said slowly, “that you  _did_  like the kiss? And that you  _are_ attracted to me?” 

A smile bloomed across her face as she let out a laugh. “You’re so narcissistic. Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I’m actually… _very_ attracted to you.” 

It was now Cormoran’s turn to bark out a laugh, dropping his head down to gaze at his lap. “ _You_ , the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, think that  _I’m_  attractive?”

“What about Charlotte? You always said how gorgeous she is, blah blah blah. Now you’re saying that I’m the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen? You’re definitely drunk, Strike.” 

Her hand was still in his as he laced their fingers together. “Robin, look at me.” The room was slightly spinning at this point, but he didn’t care. They had gotten this far and he wasn’t going to stop now. “I meant it. I mean it. Fuck, I’m not good at this kind of stuff. Look, what I’m trying to say is, before I met you, I didn’t know what beauty was. I didn’t know what it meant to feel lightness in your chest, or to laugh at something mundane just because the sound of your laugh made it even better. I didn’t know that I could wake up every morning and look forward to seeing your face.” He paused as he felt the color rising in his cheeks.  _You sound like a bloody greeting card,_  he thought to himself in embarrassment. “I meant what I said, Robin,” he finished lamely, seeking out her line of vision.

Slowly, Robin raised her head to look back at him. She was flushed and shyly looking at him through her eyelashes. “You sound like a greeting card,” she murmured, giving his hand a squeeze as she smirked. Cormoran choked out a laugh, disbelief crossing his features. “I meant what I said, too,” she continued, as Cormoran tried to regain his composure. “I think that’s why I left Matthew. I  _know_  that’s why I left Matthew. You make me feel safe, and I’ve never felt that with anyone else. You know how to make me smile, and you worry about me, and not once have I ever questioned your terrible choice in clothing because I honestly don’t care. I like you just the way you are, Cormoran Strike.”

Cormoran felt a grin cross his face as that crackling, frenetic energy snapped down the lines of his nervous system. “I’m going to kiss you again, alright?” he said.

Robin simply nodded, the smile on her face beaming towards him like the sun.

* * *

“Cormoran?” Robin whispered from somewhere down near his chest. “Are you awake?”

Blearily, Cormoran opened his eyes. It was dark in Robin’s room, the light from the streetlamp outside leaking in through the slatted blinds of her window. The two of them in the twin bed was comical. Cormoran himself in the twin bed would’ve been comical. Robin was pressed against the wall, her leg thrown over his and her arm resting on the wide expanse of his chest. Her head was pillowed by the swell of his bicep tucked underneath, his forearm snaked around her waist. His other hand was resting on top of hers on his chest, the steady rise and fall of his breathing causing them both to move.

“Hmmm?” he hummed sleepily. 

 “I’m glad I found you naked in my bed,” she said, pressing a kiss to the bare skin of his chest.

 Cormoran smoothed the hair back from her face with his hand, taking pleasure in how it felt as it glided through his fingers and fell around her shoulders. “That was my plan all along, y’know,” he said in a sleep-rough voice. “Get drunk, get naked, get the girl.” 

“Check, check, and check,” Robin murmured, pressing another electric kiss to his chest.

Cormoran gave her a squeeze, pulling her even closer into him.

“Are you comfortable enough?” she asked, unnecessarily rearranging the sheets and the quilt so that they tucked in a little higher on Cormoran’s body. 

“I can’t imagine being anywhere else right now,” he replied, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

 Even though he couldn’t see it, he could feel Robin’s smile pressing against his skin as she buried her head in his chest. 


End file.
